Comic Riffs: Interviews With Cartoonists

Barry Blitt had a big assignment and very little time, and that was precisely when his Spidey sense of humor kicked in: What if the webslinger, he mused, was rendered as a Last Traction Hero? "The first thing that...

(Photo: Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images) Stan Lee has helped build iconic comics characters out of stone, sand and adamantium. On Tuesday, the Marvel mastermind conquered concrete. Lee has just received a star on the Walk of Fame sidewalk in front...

(used by permission of Ward Sutton / boston.com) WikiLeaks is such a topical gift to cartoonists this time of year, it's as if the snowy-haired Julian Assange were Santa himself. And our favorite seasonal mash-up thus far is illustrator...

(DC Comics/Vertigo) Unlike his tag-team partner in vampiric crime, SCOTT SNYDER does not strike a pose that embodies the macabre. Stephen King, of course, sometimes likes to glower at the viewer of his publicity stills, fulfilling our visual expectation...

"A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge" cartoonist Josh Neufeld is going back out on the road on behalf of the State Department. "As with my trip to Burma [in March], it seems that -- because of 'A.D.' -- I...

(images courtesy of Ted Rall) A month ago, alt-political cartoonist and graphic novelist TED RALL heaed back to Afghanistan, where he traveled nearly a decade ago. This time, the author of "From Here to Afghanistan" was trekking unembedded with...

It's been a good year for the "Penny Arcade" guys. Their online reality show "Penny Arcade: The Series" debuted in February. They released their sparkling milestone collection, "The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade: The 11.5 Anniversary Edition" early this...

(Images courtesy of Vertigo / DC Comics Comic artist and editor CLIFF CHIANG is accustomed to working in the action stories of Human Target and The Spectre and Green Arrow/Black Canary. So when legendary rocker Neil Young came calling,...

For 18 long months, Matt Bors spent his days at war. In every hot spot, his eyes trained on every Humvee, on every rocket, on every malaria pill. It was challenging, grueling, exhausting -- and all from the safe...

(All images used by permission courtesy of John Layman) When your line of work often involves covering people who openly aspire to be good and great and legendary, you hear a lot of boasts and bravado. Rarely, though, do...

(All cartoons courtesy of Steve Breen / The San Diego Union-Tribune) It was a mission so potentially sketchy, STEVE BREEN didn't whisper a word of it to his friends or bosses, neither his newspaper nor syndicate. Only his wife...

KEITH KNIGHT used to sneak onto Artists' Alley at San Diego Comic-Con, displaying his 'zines till someone told him to fold up shop. Now, nearly two decades later, for the first time, the acclaimed creator of "The Knight Life"...

Comic Riffs reported a week ago that Molly Norris, the Seattle cartoonist whose poster art spawned the recent "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," has had an execution hit ordered against her -- one that the FBI reportedly is treating as...

ED. NOTE: This collection of memories has been updated since it first was published Monday evening. There was much Pekar love in the comics community. Beyond the curmudgeonly persona and larger-than-life onscreen personality, Pekar represented an iconoclast who pioneered...

Jeff Kinney, creator of the publishing phenomenon that is the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" children's book series, was in the Post newsroom a coupla years ago when he mentioned to Comic Riffs his new interactive website, Poptropica. Today,...

Comic Riffs first discovered the beguiling work of Tracy White a couple of years ago at the SPX Small Press Expo in suburban Washington. Her animation on Traced.com was nominated for an Ignatz Award, and her storytelling talent was...

"I have decided that people like me, who presume to critique comic strips, are anuses." Such is the self-realization -- perhaps even the tongue-in-cheek epiphany with an, um, surprise end -- of Post Magazine humor columnist Gene Weingarten. As...

Hiccup, dragon trainer. (DreamWorks Animation SKG) The modern Hollywood animator is accursed with a burden that never bedeviled Walt Disney, Chuck Jones or even the '80s Imagineers who framed each shot of Roger Rabbit. In the era of "Avatar,"...

In Sunday night's animation categories, at least, the Oscars went pretty much according to form: The heavy favorite "Up" won for feature film animation. France's "Logorama" (which 'Riffs tabbed as a better-than-even shot to edge Wallace & Gromit) was...

Among Scott Kurtz's gifts is his talent for turning heads and raising eyebrows. This afternoon, Kurtz, creator of the webcomic "PvP," will speak at Macworld at San Francisco's Moscone Center. The provocative title of his main-stage session: "He Wants...

I'm sitting in a hotel bar-and-grille that's so close to Virginia's Dulles International Airport, the hotel's walls have flight-time boards that flicker like mood lighting in the lobby. The mood at my table is a bit more subdued. Until,...

A self-portrait by Tom Tomorrow. TOM TOMORROW calls it his "up and down" year, and so far, has it ever been: At the beginning of '09, his alt-political cartoon feature "This Modern World" was bleeding newspaper clients; by summer,...

As a brilliant animator himself for the better part of three decades, off and on, TIM BURTON is not easily impressed by new talent. So when he decided to back turning Shane Acker's Oscar-nominated student short into a feature...

MIKE JUDGE's newest film almost didn't survive the bombing. From "Beavis & Butt-Head" to a still-new "King of the Hill," Judge had been an animator for the better of a decade when, in 1999, he made the transition to...

Veronica, Archie and Betty: They enjoy sharing a float and a sandwich. (AP Photo/Archie Comic Publications) When you spend a half-century at arguably the oldest humor comics firm in America, you pick up a little something. Or rather, at...

Stephen Hillenburg (Reuters/Luis Enrique Ascui) Tom Kenny, who voices the character of "SpongeBob SquarePants," says the show's creator, STEVE HILLENBURG, is a prime lesson in the importance of following your passions. Hillenburg was working as a marine biologist, but...

Scratte (left) and Scrat in "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." (Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox) "Coraline," "Monsters vs. Aliens" and "Up" have all delivered brilliant 3-D effects this year -- each offering its own visual strengths -- yet...

Simon Oxley, who designed the Twitter logo. (Noriko Oxley) Japan-based illustrator SIMON OXLEY is not a cartoonist, but rather a brilliant artist with a truly comic sense of humor. He has created thousands of whimsical illustrations, yet most of...

As his newspaper faces its D-Day sale deadline today, Comic Riffs continues its interview with Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial cartoonist DAVID HORSEY. Horsey, who has the highly trafficked Web site DavidHorsey.com through Hearst Corp., says he is ensured of keeping his...

Ted Rall: alt-cartoonist, reporter, new association prez, syndicate executive -- the portfolio still grows... (TED RALL) When we caught up with "alternative" political cartoonist TED RALL recently, his resume was as long as our arm -- and since then,...

Matt Fraction got his shot at Iron Man -- and sought to embrace new fans and honor the die-hards. (MARVEL) As the monster hit film "Iron Man" comes to DVD this week -- and Marvel and Paramount reach a...

"Y: The Last Man." (Courtesy of Brian K. Vaughan) He writes for DC. He writes for Marvel. He bags his second Eisner Award this year for his own creation, the apocalyptic comic-book series "Y: The Last Man" (for which...